Milton Texted
dr george pollard

"Paradisum Amissam" (Paradise Lost) appeared as 12 books in 1667. Johannis Miltoni (John Milton), the author, wanted to write the defining poem of England. "What the greatest and choycest wits of Athens, Rome, or modern Italy, and those Hebrews of old did for their country, I in my proportion with this over and above of being a Christian, might doe for mine." So, he did, defining not only England, but the Christian world, modern ideas about democracy and the rights and wrongs of industrialism.

Jonathan Bing, writing in "Weekly Variety," for 23-30 April 2006, notes an "English prof recently reduced the plot of the epic poem by Milton, "Paradise Lost" to a text message short enough to fit on the screen of a cell phone: "Devl kikd out a hevn coz jelus of jesus & strts war."